The last CD I bought was from Page CXVI – a group that remakes hymns. So while it’s technically a “new” CD – all of the songs and tunes were already familiar. The rest of my music purchasing history is littered with single song purchases from iTunes. All of those are songs I’d already heard a million times before purchasing on the background tracks in stores or played for me by friends desperate to expand my popular music horizon. I’ve got about 400 songs on my iPod, but generally only play the same twenty. I’ve rocked out to the same three songs every day for the past month and a half.

I love watching reruns of my favorite TV shows.

This may sound like a waste of time – but isn’t all TV basically a waste of time?

Usually, I’m happier watching the rerun than I am watching a new episode. Given the choice of watching a movie I’ve never seen or a favorite movie I’ve watched a dozen times I will almost always choose the one I’ve already seen. One of the main sensations I experience upon finishing a new TV show or movie is the anticipation of watching it again at a later date as a rerun.

I’ve just purchased tickets back to Thailand.

I have to leave my host country every six months and the next trip is coming up in July.

When I was trying to decide where to go on this little mandatory trip, I seriously considered going somewhere else. Malaysia. Cambodia. Sri Lanka. Someone I know talked Malaysia up as infinitely better than Thailand so much so that I was in the process of picking out a hotel in Penang.

But then I realized – that’s just not me.

One year in college, just two weeks before finals, my completely extroverted roommate wanted to re-organize our dorm room. Mired in papers, studying every waking moment, and anticipating the craziness of the Christmas holiday – nothing sounded more stressful to me. I put her off as long as possible until she threatened offered to do the reorganize herself. That sounded like a worse idea, so one night we rearranged absolutely everything.

What neither one of us knew at the time was that the tension between us was caused by our personality’s reaction to stress. For her – stress was a catalyst for change. She coped with all of the other craziness by initiating changes she could control (furniture reorganization). My preferred coping response to stress was to hunker down and attempt to make sure nothing else changed as far as I could control.

Introverts generally find routine and sameness life-giving – especially if they’re already stressed out in other areas of life. So when life’s a little bit crazy, I blast the same three songs over and over every day. I leave the new TV episode in favor of a rerun. And, once I get over how it may make me sound boring, I make plans to go to the exact same hotel in the exact same city in Thailand.

Introverts – Do you see yourself in this description? What are some things you find you prefer on rerun? Do you have extroverted friends/family members who urge you into new experiences?

Extroverts – I’ve described this to an extrovert friend of mine who’s married to an introvert and she laughed at how much like her husband I sound. Have you noticed the preference for reruns in your introverted friends/family members? Does it bother you?

If you’ve read this blog for a while, you know that I’m, quite happily, an introvert. I really value being content with long stretches of aloneness and the ability to internally hash things out – two introvert strengths. Lately, though, I’ve been experiencing one of introversion’s downsides.

Introverts’ brains process things differently than extrovert’s brains and being overwhelmed by circumstances or emotions makes our normally slow processing even more sluggish. So during miserable goodbyes or exciting hellos (both of which I have in abundance at the moment!) – my brain is trying to catch up and my facial and emotional expression remains passive as I try to recover lost processing power.

In these situations, I find myself performing by instinct reinforced by things I’ve read or observed from other people. For example, when I’m listening to someone share something highly emotional or personal, I find a tiny part of my brain reciting from a list of ways to be a good listener. “Aaaaand, nod now!” “Say mmhmmm.” “Smile encouragingly.”

This is because introverts tend to sit expressionless as a friend pours out their deepest, darkest heart secrets. This leads people to conclude their introvert friend is a bad or uncaring listener. But it’s not necessarily that the introvert isn’t listening – it’s that their brain is concentrating so hard on what you’re saying, they’re unconscious to the fact they haven’t nodded in understanding for the past ten minutes.

At certain times, I’ve found this slow-brain a good thing. In college, I worked for campus security for two years. I handled several emergency or semi-emergency situations in which there was a rush of adrenaline and fear… thirty minutes after it was all over. During the actual incident, I was calm, cool, and since my own brain was hopelessly frozen, all I could do was rely on the training I’d received (which turned out to be excellent!).

But while slow-brain can make for good emergency-response skills, it isn’t great for normal-life operations like conveying to a friend how much you’re going to miss them (especially when open crying is the expected response), how ecstatic you are to see them, or that you’re attentive to what they’re saying. Sometimes, an introvert friend’s lack of outer expression throws me when I’m on the receiving end of a quiet welcome or stoic goodbye. Many introverts actively avoid direct confrontations because, in the heat of the moment, our brains literally freeze and the right response comes three hours later when we’ve recovered.

While we do tend to be less expressive than extroverts, it’s not that introverts aren’t experiencing the same fear, sadness or joy. They are – it’s just less natural for us to express it openly. Introverts tend to find other ways of communicating themselves – like writing notes or thinking through their responses before the emotional event.

I’m curious – if you’re an introvert, do you experience this slowed-down phenomenon? What do you do to show others what you might not naturally express outwardly?
Have you ever misjudged someone as stoic or unfeeling only to be surprised later by what was on the inside?

I guess maybe you could call it jealousy, but I think it’s more of an introvert hang-up.

I’m beginning to realize that there are a lot of things about my extrovert friends that I don’t understand or that I judge in ways that affect our relationships.

The whole verbal processing thing that extroverts do, I’ve learned to understand. I’ve learned to accept that not everything they say is a bona fide plan and they’ll probably forget what they just said in another hour. That’s so much different from the way I, as an introvert, prefer to process internally. Therefore anything I say out loud is probably a plan or thought I’m at least somewhat dedicated to holding on to.

I’m learning to put myself forward just a little bit more. To not expect extroverts to ask as many questions about me as I ask about them, and to not be hurt when they seem to use me primarily as a sounding board. For me, asking questions and listening is a sign of love and friendship. For an extrovert, talking to you is a sign of love and friendship and they’re not quite as attuned to who’s doing more talking as long as the act of communication is taking place.

With all of that understood, there’s another area of introvert/extrovert difference that still pops up and surprises me with how much it affects me. When I see an extroverted friend making a new friend and getting along really well with someone, I tend to automatically assume they’ll no longer be friends with me.

Which is why you could call this jealousy – especially if you’re an extrovert.

But here’s what it looks like from my perspective and why I don’t think it’s jealousy, necessarily.

Because relationships take both time and energy out of an introvert (namely, me) – I do literally have a limited number of friends that I can be close to. I can’t set a firm number to it, but I do know that somewhere there is a limit to my capacity for deep relationships. If one of those relationships drifts apart, then I have room for another one. If I want to deepen a relationship with someone else, then one of my current relationships will have to cool.

It’s different for an extrovert. Relationships for them only take time. I think it’s for that reason they can have a much higher friend-load and adding a new relationship doesn’t necessarily mean another one will have to cool. There seems to be much less of a limit for extroverts. Also, they tend to make acquaintances more quickly than introverts and what I would consider “making a new friend” they consider just hanging out – without an expectation of further friendship.

So when I see an extroverted friend hitting it off with someone new, my instant assumption that this may now put our friendship on the back burner is because I fundamentally don’t understand the capacity extroverts have for exponential relationships. And there’s not a raging sense of, “Ahh! I have to stop their new friendship!” and more of a sinking, “Oh, well, guess they won’t have as much energy for our friendship anymore…”

What about when I see an introverted friend hitting it off with a new friend? I must confess, this happens far less often because (1) I don’t have very many introverted friends and (2) the ones I do have tend to stick more with the friendships they already have. It seems like on the whole, introverts tend to be much less “flirty” in their relationships and I feel more secure in the friendships I have with other introverts

Since I’m just learning about this facet of my personality (and the personality of my extroverted friends), it hits me harder than other miscommunications I’ve had with extroverted friends in the past (see above references to verbal processing and being nothing but a sounding board). I can spend days being insecure about a friendship I think is going to melt away when, really, my extroverted friend has no intention or thought about that happening. I’m learning to remind myself of this facet of extroverted personalities, but it’s slow going.

I’m curious for your thoughts on this. Am I crazy? Am I really, truthfully just jealous? Extroverts, have I portrayed you correctly? Introverts, do you ever feel the same way?